Roomie love!

Just wanting to show you my (awesome!) roomies!

Jugando!
Playing!

Jugando más - yo perdí :(
More playing - I lost :(

Lydia, la artista!

Just chilling..

(Finally!) An update!

Lots of things have happened since I last wrote on the blog – I sincerely apologize to everyone who tried to follow me through this site. BUT! Now I’m back! So let’s start where we left off:

The biggest thing that happened here was that I had to leave the Cornicks because they had to use my casita for Jorge’s brother and his wife who were to come to Costa Rica November 1^st. Unfortunately the planning wasn’t quite there, so I had to find a place in less than 10 days. And so the hunt began...!
 

 

It was tough, but I did my best and fortunately I had sooo many good friends to help me in my search. With their help, especially Stefan’s, I called and viewed 1-4 apartments every day.

Fortunately, I wasn’t alone in my hunt; Lydia joined me so we could search for something nice together. We ended up with a third roommate too, called Freiser and now we all live together in a nice but ugly-coloured apartment in what is known as La Calle de Amargura or in English “Bitter-street.” Should I name an equal to it in Denmark, it would probably be Jomfru Ane gade. This should give you a good idea of how it is to live here – oh yeah, and the train, which is extremely noisy, passes right by us in the morning, so it’s now gotten the nickname “MALPARIDO TREN!! (con cariño)” But we do have a lot of fun and the noise from La Calle is easy to ignore most of the time.

Here’s a couple of pictures from when we moved in:

La cocina - the kitchen

La lavadora - the washing machine.

La alacena! Foooood!

La sala, muy vacio! Jaja. - The livingroom, very empty!

El baño

Me and Lydia's room - messy!

So, this is my new home here. I ended up living by myself abroad before I moved out of my parent’s house in Denmark – oh well.

Violin kids from La Carpio

Incredibly sweet and cute and also very, very, very poor. :/

Nuestros animales

We have a lot of animals around here. Some we love, others not so much. Here are some of them:

Una mariposa del Museo Nacional

Otra mariposa. Está comiendo el néctar de la flor

Una de las mariposas azules. Arriba tienen el color azul hermíssima y abajo este color.

Me encanta este foto. Que bonita!

La mariposa está saliendo su crisálida

Un loro en el camino del finc de café en Heredia

All of the butterfly pictures were taken at Museo Nacional in San José, but I've seen them fly around here, too. Not the beautiful blue ones though. I took the picture of the parrot, when I went to see a coffee farm in Heredia with some other spanish students from Intensa (my school). There, we spent most of the day walking and eating the different fruits we found.

Now to the animals who we actually live with every day:

Hormigas. El foto es del calle de Eureka pero también están aquí. Son GRANDES!

These pictures are pretty blurry, but you get the idea.

Ants are pretty much everywhere here and it's impossible to live without them. Not because we don't want to, they're simply just impossible to get rid of. Fortunately, this type of ant doesn't live very near the houses, because as Jorge said: "They will cut up a tree in a weak" These critters are HUGE.In my casita, I have counted three types of ants so far. Red ones, black ones (both bigger than at home!) and tiny black ones. The tiny ones won't bite but they WILL eat your candy/fruit/anything sweet.

Una mariposa nocturnal en la casa

It seems the (huge) moth randomly decided to die on the wall.

Un de los dos perros. Se llama Becky. Me encanta!!

They (we!) have dogs here! They live outside the house, which is great. I walk by them every morning (and several times a day) and they are soo sweet! These are pictures of the female Becky.

Say hello to my little friend!

This bug woke me from my sleep and freaked me out by sounding like a helicopter (more or less) and bumping into everything. I ended up hiding under my blanket while it hid in my closet.

The next day Maris showed one of the same kind, just smaller (seems like mine was a biiig guy) and told me they are harmless.

As you can see, everything is just a "little bit" bigger here. Except for the dogs. They're pretty normal-sized. ;)

Fencing!

I spent most of my second day in Costa Rica (Sunday) watching Tomás in a fencing competition. It was very interesting as I have never seen fencing for real before. It's SUCH a hard sport to understand! To me, it seemed pretty random who got points for touching the other.

Rooting for Cornick

Tomás with friends - trying to remove the smell of queso

Tomás -" hermano" :)

Getting ready!

Fighting - Tomás to the right

Fighting - Tomás to the right

Unfortunately, Tomás didn't win the competition, but I had a good day anyway. 


In the evening, I went with Maris, her mother, Jorge´s mother and the kids to church. An interesting experience, peaceful, even though the church was  s t u f f e d  with people! I don't think I'll join them every Sunday though.
 It's a little funny because Maris is VERY religious and Jorge doesn't believe at all. I guess it makes for some kind of balance. Also, it gives me the freedom to do either, which suits me well.

The First Day

After a loooong journey, I finally arrived in Costa Rica.

I got to Costa Rica very late because the flight Miami-San Jose kept on getting delayed and when we finally boarded, they had to exchange the flight crew because they had been on duty for too long. So I waited. And waited. Aaaaand waited. But finally we went into the air (around 19 or so, Miami time). When I arrived in San José, my suitcase had gone missing. This was the closest I got to having a meltdown, but fortunately it arrived the next day, so no harm done.

The first day I went with Maris to a very poor barrio, which name I have forgotten. She´s teaching the local kids to play guitar, her mother draws with them, Gretchen (Maris' niece) teaches them to play the violin and another kid teaches them drumming. Of course I was matched up with Gretchen, because we both play violin and are around the same age. I couldn't play however, because my fingernails are too long, and also, it was a bit hard to communicate as I hardly know any Spanish and the people there knows absolutely no English. 

Fortunately I didn't miss my chance, because they do this every Saturday! The project has been running for around 7 months.

When we got home, I took a (much needed) one-hour nap. It's really hard coping with the eight-hour difference between Costa Rica and Denmark!

Afterwards I went with Maris to "Tips and Fun," which is held at her mother's house right beside her and Jorge's. "Tips and Fun" consists of kids from around this neighbourhood and Tomás and Manuelas friends from school and is run by Maris, her mother and her sister. They make all different kinds of activities. Today Gretchen was ‘visiting’ to teach the kids how to make collages (I did the top of a box - very neat!)

Afterwards we had a little snack break and one of the kids, Victor, showed off his guitar playing skills. Quite impressive!

Later, we tried to play Cranium, but it didn't work out so well as the kids didn't know the game and I didn't know much Spanish. It didn't last long before one of the kids suggested a game of hide and seek instead. I was getting really tired at that point so I didn't join in. Instead I talked with some of the others at the table.

I have no pictures from my first day as I didn't take any.

The break

Having to take a break on the whole living-in-Denmark-thing got me thinking about breaks. How long can a break last before it's forgotten in time and just ends up being a plain stop?

You can take a break in your relationship, a full break where you go out and meet others. But for how long can this break last before it's just a break-up. Since both things are considered break-ups, many people might be indifferent to the distinction between those two. I might be an old romantic at this point (or just desperately clinging to the past, your call), but I believe in break-break-ups, which is a break-up with the possibility of relationship resumption. I'm just not sure how long this "right to withdraw the break-up" is valid. Couple of months? A year? Two, three, five, ten?

My granddad took a smoking break when he and my grandmother got kids. That break lasted for more than 40 years, and I'm quite sure it's no longer a break but just a plain stop. If he ever starts smoking again, it would be rather unexpected.

I'm going to Costa Rica in a year, which means I have to take some breaks. With friends, family, places, language. In the break I'm replacing those with new friends, 'family', places and a new language. When the break is over, I'll go back to my old habits, but it'll have changed, because I have. And because now I need room for the new experiences and friends. Shouldn't be a problem. But along the way, some of the breaks will probably turn into stops. Most likely without me wanting to, maybe even knowing about it. They might just fade.

I hope they don't.